Plastic cards such as financial cards including credit and debit cards, identification cards, driver's licenses, gift cards, and other plastic cards may be personalized with personal information of the intended card holder. Examples of personalization include, but not are limited to, names, addresses, photographs, account numbers, employee numbers, or the like. The personal information may be applied to the card in a number of different ways including, but not limited to, printing on a surface of the document, storing the information on a magnetic stripe disposed on the card, and storing the information on an integrated circuit chip or smart chip embedded in the card.
Card processing systems that personalize plastic cards are utilized by institutions that issue such personalized plastic cards. In some cases, card processing systems can be designed for relatively small scale, individual card personalization in relatively small volumes, for example measured in tens or low hundreds per hour. In these mechanisms, a single document to be personalized is input into a card processing system, which typically includes one or two processing capabilities, such as printing and laminating. These processing machines are often termed desktop processing machines because they have a relatively small footprint intended to permit the processing machine to reside on a desktop. Many examples of desktop processing machines are known, such as the SD or CD family of desktop card printers available from Entrust Datacard Corporation of Shakopee, Minn. Other examples of desktop processing machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,434,728 and 7,398,972, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
For large volume batch production of personalized cards (for example, on the order of high hundreds or thousands per hour), institutions often utilize card processing systems that employ multiple processing stations or modules to process multiple cards at the same time to reduce the overall per card processing time. Examples of such machines include the MX and MPR family of central issuance processing machines available from Entrust Datacard Corporation of Shakopee, Minn. Other examples of central issuance processing machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,825,054, 5,266,781, 6,783,067, and 6,902,107, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.